Help Your Child at Home – Literacy Thursday 8 th October 2015

Reading and Phonics

Early Reading Skills Children’s early experiences of reading begin with: - listening to stories (home/nursery/school) - talking about stories - developing their listening skills Stages of early reading: - discussion books - sharing a book with an adult who ‘models’ reading - sound recognition/blending words/tricky words

Discussion books (no words) Focus on talking about the book and what happens in the story, use the pictures as clues for discussion. Model how to use a book correctly (turning the pages from right to left). Talk about what the story could be about using the front cover.

How do we teach reading at school? We start the process of teaching children to read by recognising and making the sound of each letter of the alphabet. The next stage is to ‘blend’ sounds together to ‘sound out’ a word. For example c – a – t = cat, sh – o –p = shop All children develop blending skills at their own pace!!!

Tricky words Tricky Words – The most common words that children will come across in their reading books when they begin to read (can also be called high frequency words). For example: come, the, to, in, at, look, said. Children need to learn to recognise these words by sight and not rely on blending them.

What is Letters and Sounds?

 Letters and Sounds teaches phonics skills through games and hands-on learning experiences (multi-sensory approach)  The aim of Letters and Sounds is to ensure that children are well-placed to read and spell words with fluency and confidence by the time they reach the end of Key Stage 1.  Letters and Sounds promotes the development of word recognition and language comprehension (understanding what words mean)

Daily phonics teaching (Letters and Sounds) 20 minute session each day to teach children to link sounds and letters by learning how to say the sound for each letter of the alphabet and groups of letters like sh, ch, th, igh. Letters and Sounds also teaches the skill of blending and segmenting. Jolly Phonics sounds - set 1 - s, a, t, i, p, n set 2 - c, k, e, h, r, m, d set 3 – g, o, u, l, f, b set 4 –ai, j, oa, ie, ee, or set 5 – z, w, ng, v, oo set 6 – y, x, ch, sh, th, set 7 – qu, ou, oi, ue, er, ar *articulation of phonemes (youtube)

Blending – hearing sounds and merging them together to make a word. s – n – a – p = snap p – o – t = pot Segmenting – splitting up a word into its individual sounds to spell a word dog = d – o – g mat = m – a – t

Putting it all together! Early reading skills of blending, high frequency word recognition, using picture cues and discussion skills will all fit together to enable children to read. For example “ Dad was mad at Floppy” red – blended word blue – high frequency words/words learnt by sight

Resources for home Tricky Words Blending cards Card 3 huff hiss puff fill hill miss kiss cuff said look the

Writing

How do the skills in Letters and Sounds support our work on reading/writing in the EYFS?  Reaffirms the importance of using the correct letter formation  Enables them to establish the link between the sound of a letter (phoneme) and the written form (grapheme)  Encourages them to become independent writers by hearing sounds and ‘having a go’ at writing independently (piece of elastic!)  Role-Play Writing – free writing in the role- play area e.g. shopping lists, registers, birthday cards.  Teaches the high frequency words that we read in our reading books  Teacher models different ways of writing  Learning through play is fun!

Examples of early writing  Children at the very early stages of writing will use emergent writing.  This shows the skill of understanding that print conveys meaning.

As children develop the skills of segmenting, blending and forming letters they experiment with writing.

By the end of the EYFS, most children should be able to:  Link sounds to letters, naming and sounding the letters of the alphabet.  Hear and say sounds in words in the order in which they occur.  Blend sounds in words.  Use phonic knowledge to read simple regular words  Attempt to read more complex words using phonics knowledge  Write own name and other words from memory  Hold a pencil and use it effectively to form recognisable letters  Attempt writing for a variety of purposes (letters, postcards, lists)  Use phonics knowledge to write simple regular words and make phonetically attempts at more complex words  Begin to form captions and simple sentences sometimes using punctuation

What reading skills can you help your child to develop? Listen to and join in with poems and stories Suggest how the story might end Talk about the pictures in books Handle books carefully, hold them the correct way up and turn the pages Understand the concept of a word Enjoy a range of books Retell a story in the correct sequence

What reading skills can you help your child to develop? Use story language, for example, “once upon a time, run run as fast as you can, you can’t catch me I’m the gingerbread man” Read high frequency words and simple sentences Blend sounds to read words Talk about the characters in a story Read stories to your child to model how pages are turned, how expression is used, how to use different voices for characters and enjoy sharing books and stories together.

What reading skills can you help your child to develop? Reading in real-life – let your child see you read, for example, a recipe, newspaper, magazine, bus sign, shop signs and labels on items in shops. Play games: I-Spy Make up silly rhymes and phrases Choose a category and think of items for each letter of the alphabet apple, banana, cherry and so on Play bingo games or matching pairs with sounds and tricky words.

Thank you for coming, we hope you enjoyed the session and found it useful. If you have any questions please ask the staff and they will be happy to help you. Mrs Robbins, Miss C Price and Mr Allen

Thank you for coming. Any questions?